Training…?! Oh yeah, it's what real racers do.
I met Greg K and Tim F at the Dawg this morning and we hit Lake WA Blvd for some six minute intervals. Good times.
After I got home Shelley and tried Stand Up Paddle boarding for the first time. And you say 'multi-sport'? Oh yeah.
I put in a lot of miles (for me anyway) last week hence the slacking off in the first part of this week. And at the risk of TMI, all that riding - especially in the hotter weather - gave me a saddle sore so I was not too upset about taking a few days off the bike. But there are still races to do and I'd like to do well so time to train.
ASIDE - if you could guarantee that there would be no adverse side effects from your activity of choice like saddle sores if you cycle or lost toenails if you run I bet athletics would be an entirely different kind of thing. All you would have to do is train and rest.
Turns out if you go roughly 25 mph it takes almost exactly six minutes from Mt Baker Beach to Seward Park so that is what we did. The idea was to hold a steady tempo and not start out too fast and if possible, pick it up a tad toward the end of each effort. The last time I tried these I felt pretty good. This time not so much.
You can always tell after the second interval if you are warming up or gassing. My third one was tough and apparently it was the same for Greg who was still recovering from his trip to France where he did not ride for one week so we spun down to Seward and then did our last/fourth interval. Four felt okay but I was not up for more so we checked out the brand new pavement on Madrona and called it good.
Shelley has been talking about stand up paddling for ages so when I got the Living Social coupon from Amazon for half off I jumped at it. We booked our lesson with Surf Ballard and headed down.
I think we lucked out. Some of the guys hanging around the shop looked like your typical surfer wannabes/stoners but we got this new guy who had moved here from Oahu just two months ago and was very professional and nice. There were two instructors for 11 of us, we put all the boards in this huge cart and headed across the street.
Here we put in at a 'hidden' beach that was actually pretty crowded. We shoved off and started out on our knees. As people felt comfortable they stood up.
Shelley fell in almost right away but then seconds later so did I. And then so did a couple of other clients. The bay we were practicing in was not that calm so after a few minutes the instructor suggested we paddle out, around a corner and into the Shilshole Bay Marina. It was MUCH calmer here… We paddled under ramps and walkways and all the way up to the north end and then let the breeze push us back to where we started. All that took about 1.5 hours!
There was this one slightly pompous Asian-American woman that started standing and seemed to have no trouble at all the entire time. She kept saying things like, "This isn't so hard!" and, "I don't have any trouble standing up!" As we paddled back to the beach a big wake hit her broadside and she endoed into the water in spectacular fashion. I suspect more than one person was secretly happy she finally got dunked. Oh yeah, it also flattened her very styled and henna'd hair. Another bonus.
When we landed the tide had come up a bit and all of our sandals had started to float but some kind citizens had rescued them and tossed them all onto higher ground. Thanks kind people!
I started to help carry boards back up to the cart when suddenly something did not feel right. I did this slow motion head turn glancing down to my left hand and sure enough, my wedding ring was gone. Shit.
I took a few minutes and sifted through the sand but quickly realized how fruitless this was and gave up. I'm pretty sure it came off after I landed and while I was carrying boards but in the sand? No way was I going to find that. What a massive bummer.
In spite of this both Shelley and would like to try SUP one more time.
| Sleep | |
| Waking HR | |
| Body Weight | |
| Body Fat | |
| Breakfast | 5:00 AM - cereal |
| Lunch | |
| Dinner | |
| Workout Food | large bottle w/2 scoops HEED and 1 tablet Nuun |
| Injuries | |
| Therapy | |
| Time of Day | 6:00 AM |
| Workout Type | intervals |
| Weather | 60, partly cloudy, dry, light breeze out of the north |
| Course | |
| Results | |
| Equipment | Road Bike |
| Clothing | bib shorts, sleeveless undershirt, short sleeve jersey, cap |
